Shogun
by DarkPaladin000
Summary: Monday's Dusk attempted to free the First Part of the Will, but was caught before he could and was summarily executed. Sir Thursday however, realizes that the House is going into disrepair fast, and decides to take matters into his own hands.
1. Mister Monday I

**A/N: Yes, I know that the KttK fandom isn't that active, but I thought of this story for a long time and I couldn't help but put it into words.**

 **Basically, what happens in this story is that Monday's Dusk is caught trying to free the Will, and so it is never freed, but Thursday sees how the rest of the House is progressing, and realizes that in order to save it he needs to take everything into his own hands. This is mainly inspired by the Japanese idea of the Shogun, who was the military ruler who technically served under the Emperor, but secretly ruled the country and kept the emperor under lock and key.**

News didn't reach the Great Maze fast. It was almost completely isolated from the rest of the House, but that didn't mean that gossip didn't eventually reach Sir Thursday's ears.

Apparently, Monday's Dusk had grown tired of his master (inwardly Sir Thursday really couldn't blame him) and had tried to free the Will, but had been stopped by Noon, and had later been executed.

This was an interesting, though rater useless piece of information given that the situation had been taken care of. However, it felt like a bucket of ice-cold water to Sir Thursday.

For over ten thousand years, he had turned a blind eye to the misdemeanors of his peers, the other Morrow Days, and how they had allowed the House to sink into disrepair. He told himself that he was a soldier, and from all that he had observed of the Secondary Realms, that meant obeying his superior's orders without question. Yet, being the puppet of that vile Denizen Superior Saturday sickened him, and watching how the entire House fell into disrepair, something he had ignored earlier, awakened something in him.

It was true that he was always angry, but a large portion of that was being forced to stand around with nothing to do, watching helplessly as the House gradually…

He shook his head. He had always thought that Denizens were fixed, unchanging in their nature, but now… now he no longer wanted to remain complacent. Somewhere, it conflicted with his deeper nature, and this deeply unsettled him.

And so, he took to watching the Secondary Realms as a source of entertainment, knowing that the other Days did so, though he didn't interfere. He always liked watching wars, as, honestly, the Campaigns of the House had begun to bore him. True, they were exciting on some level, but they always won. That wasn't true with the humans, and there war tactics always fascinated him, as well as there codes of battle.

One in particular was a tiny island nation which would later be called Japan. Their warriors were known as the samurai, and their code of honor was something that Sir Thursday would have liked to add to the army's. Over time though, he noticed that one of them eventually took control of the country from his political superior, the Emperor… though he never let it show.

Immediately, thoughts began racing through Sir Thursday's head, most of them treasonous. What right did Saturday have to tell him what to do? What right did she have to control the army? After all, _he_ was the one with the Fourth Key, not her, and as such he should be the supreme commander of the army, and not Sunday or Saturday.

And then he realized that he was right. He could order his soldiers to do as he wished, and he could make them even turn against his so-called 'superiors.' And if anyone resisted, the Fourth Key would take care of that quite quickly. And it wasn't as if he had to go about shouting it at the top of his lungs…

It was then that he had made up his mind. He was going to have to take down Saturday (not Sunday, he doubted he could even do that, plus Sunday really wouldn't bother Thursday) and then he would send his soldiers to various parts of the House to control them.

Yes… though that raised some problems. While the Army was fully capable of taking down the Lower House, the Far Reaches, and the Border Sea combined, taking on a large number of sorcerers with none with him was a difficult thing. Not to mention that Saturday wasn't going to fall easily with him just having one Key.

The natural conclusion, of course, meant that he would somehow have to obtain the other Day's Keys, or at the very least, one or two more.

An idea did creep into his mind though, an idea to obtain Monday's Key. Monday had taken a huge and substantial debt from Tuesday, and if Thursday could similarly say that Monday owed him something, he could go ahead and take Monday's Key for his own.

The only problem was that Monday _didn't_ owe him anything in particular, and it wasn't like Thursday could just go ahead and open up shop for that matter.

These ideas preoccupied him for the better part of three months, during which he began lashing out at people less. He also realized that he would need to expand his army, as he couldn't just well call up on the Reserve to take over parts of the rest of the House.

But, first things first, Thursday picked up his phone and made a call to Tuesday.

"What is this?" a voice boomed out across the room.

"Sir Thursday. There's a business deal that I'd like to talk to you about," Thursday said.

"And what's that? If you're wondering, no, I'm not going to give you a refund on those Not-Horses-"

"This isn't about the Not-Horses," Thursday said. Tuesday had sent some Not-Horses to Sir Thursday some five centuries earlier, and they were fine…. save for the fact that they were all pink for some reason (Thursday privately held the opinion that the show _My Little Pony_ was to blame) which meant that the Hoard had not wanted to ride them, dismissing them as 'girly.' Thursday demanded a refund, which wasn't given, though later on Sunday took all of them mentioning that they'd 'go well with the new house' and Thursday had pawned them off, confused, but elated. "I have thought about siphoning off some of the Army's funds to invest in, to make us financially self-sufficient."

"What? Why?"

"Because cozying up to Saturday isn't how I envision most of my evenings!" Thursday said. "She only gives us a fraction of what we got before, and I do not want to host another tournament like the last one."

"I remember that," Tuesday said. He growled. "All of my money that I had bet had mysteriously vanished when you cancelled the contest. Where's my refund?"

"One of Saturday's sorcerers took all of it," Thursday said. "And I do believe that he made some sort of huge Lego tower out of it. Saturday demolished it and gave it all to me. Best I can do is give you the pieces."

"Why would I want a giant Legos tower?" the Grim asked.

"I don't know, and that's besides the point anyway," Thursday said. "Given that I want to start investing in stuff, I wanted to buy Mister Monday's debt from you."

"Eh? That's your idea of an investment?"

"Sure. He's always late and ends up overpaying anyway," Sir Thursday said.

The two of them then went about haggling about the price. Tuesday initially wanted double of the debt's value, but the price went way down when Thursday reminded him that Monday would be the first Day to be deposed of, and if he was, the debt was worthless.

They made it to eighty percent of Monday's debt, which probably told Thursday that even Tuesday was beginning to think that lending out stuff to Monday was a bad idea.

Thursday disconnected the phone. The only problem now was money. If he paid in full, he would not have enough for the Campaign just coming round the corner. And truth be told, he did need to establish a way to get funds that didn't rely on Saturday or on holding gambling tournaments.

Luckily, he had an idea, and so later on, he called the Marshalls for a meeting in his room.

He hadn't thought it prudent to share his plans for toppling Saturday with his Marshalls, or anyone else for that matter.

"Now listen up," he said as they entered and saluted. "As always, we seem to be running low on funds for now, and I've thought of a brilliant plan to make this place self-sufficient for the next two or three millennia."

The Marshalls stiffened. They still had not forgotten about Thursday's last attempt to make money, a Maze-wide game of 'The Floor is Lava' in which people were allowed to bet on the winners. They then glanced at Marshall Dawn, and their expressions said, "Have you been hiding Upper House Vodka again somewhere?"

"No," Dawn replied without saying a word.

"As I was saying," Sir Thursday said, annoyed that they weren't listening to him with their undivided attention, "I have a plan to get us enough gold to last for a good three thousand or so years. As you all may know, the Border Sea is currently under the control of a renegade pirate by the name of Feverfew. He has amassed quite a hoard of treasure over the years, which I plan to seize. Under current Border Sea Law, the one who recovers treasure from a criminal, in this case Feverfew, is entitled to ninety percent of its value. Our attack plan is simple, I will enter his wordlet using the Fourth Key, strike him down, and thereby seize his treasure, which, to take all of it, we will need to send a few companies of soldiers into the Border Sea to retrieve."

There were protests from all three of the Marshalls. Sir Thursday tried very hard to restrain himself from striking them.

"Won't this violate the treaty?" Marshall Dawn asked.

"Not really," Thursday said. "Technically Feverfew's Wordlet is part of the Secondary Realms, so I can enter it on any Thursday. After that, the Accord does not forbid me from taking what is truly my property, and Feverfew's various treasure chests scattered across the Border Sea will become ninety percent mine when I defeat him and take their locations. Plus, even if it does slightly violate the Accord, what does it matter? The other Days visit Port Wednesday all the time without care for who rules it, and it isn't like Duchess Wednesday can very well go ahead and sue me in her current state."

"Can you really take down Feverfew then?" Marshall Noon asked. "I've heard he is an accomplished sorcerer."

"I can take on anything that is thrown at me," Thursday said with a snarl. The Marshalls started backing away from him. However, it was clear that they didn't have any further objections, which was more fortunate for them than it was for Thursday. "Good, all of you are dismissed. I will be departing next morning."

The Marshalls left him to be alone with his thoughts. Sir Thursday looked up at the roof, his mind racing as he plotted the destruction of her, who was right above him.

It was a start.

In truth, he hadn't told the Marshals everything. He had actually intended to station his soldiers in the Border Sea permanently, so that they could 'inspect' various items, and in turn, use them to fund the Maze. In short, he intended to replace, not just overthrow, Feverfew. Not to mention it would be a good pilot project, so that he could know how the House would respond if he stationed his army outside of the Great Maze.

 **A/N: That's all for now. If you're wondering about the last chapter of Calculated, it will be updated eventually. Thanks for reading, and I do appreciate reviews.**


	2. Mister Monday II

**A/N: And so we continue with Sir Thursday's journey to trying to take over the House by force.**

Sir Thursday did not have a peaceful sleep, or actually, peaceful time staring at the ceiling in his bed while he couldn't sleep due to keeping the Fourth Part of the Will in check. He never did get it normally, but his mind was racing unnaturally fast, thinking of just about everything that could go wrong, with number one on the list being that Saturday found out somehow. There was very little she could do against him directly with the Accord, even though it sort of gave him a stomachache to even contemplate disobeying orders, he was sure he could do so comfortably later on.

The next morning, after getting shaved and dressed (he needed to get rid of that stupid shaving regulation) and then informed the Marshals that he would be leaving by Stair. As they couldn't come with him, and the Piper's Children weren't very useful in this sort of operation, he decided to go on his lonesome.

It was a difficult thing to take the Improbable Stair to somewhere that you hadn't been before. When Sunday and the other Days had deposed of Wednesday, they had decided to let Tuesday handle where her part of the Will would be, and Tuesday had drawn a sketch of the worldlet he planned to make. Thursday had only seen a glimpse of it, but he had to hope that it was enough, and that Tuesday had not made too many changes to the worldlet that the Stair wouldn't take him there.

Thursday tried to shake these thoughts from his head, because it meant that it was more likely that the Stair would take him somewhere else if he did, but that just meant that he thought about it even more and…

The Stair vanished and was replaced by a huge desert which spread in all directions, with the sun just about to set on the horizon. Thursday used his Key and began sketching the Stair again. He thought he heard some noises, though he couldn't discern their location, and was back on the Stair without giving it another thought.

This time, he managed to land up on a planet that looked as desolate as Earth's moon, and left it to finally reach his destination.

The sand was soft beneath his feet, and he realized that heavy military gear was probably not that good for marching on an island. He looked around and saw a large number of mountains to one side, and docks with various ships bearing various black flags in different emblems. He could hear various voices coming from the docks.

'Great,' he thought, 'Now where am I supposed to find Feverfew?'

He realized that he really had no plan for finding the pirate except for standing around and hoping that he'd show up. He then saw some of what looked like Feverfew's guards some distance away.

Thursday flung a rock in their direction and they quickly came to see who had made the disturbance. In a classic action-movie style (Thursday _loved_ mortal action/war flicks, though he did think they were a tad too unrealistic) he began interrogating them on where Feverfew was and when he'd be coming.

Thursday was lucky. Feverfew was scheduled to arrive within an hour, and so he knocked the two guards unconscious (he thought about killing them, but then considered that they might be useful in establishing the Border Sea as a base) and went about trying to figure out his next move.

Thursday did see a huge ship arrive on the horizon suddenly, and it looked too clichéd scary to be anything but Feverfew's ship. Going in on the ship solo seemed like a stupid idea, so he waited for them to disembark.

He couldn't exactly make out who Feverfew was supposed to be. He could've tried to check using his Key, but the thing was that it could've alerted Feverfew to his presence.

He anxiously waited for several minutes, and that turned into the greater part of an hour.

Suddenly, he felt a strange sickness in his stomach and nearly toppled over. The Fourth Key had moved from its badge form and into his hand.

Someone had tried to kill him, Thursday realized. But the Key had stopped the bulk of the attack.

Just then, a pirate captain, who looked just like a pirate captain should, descended down from above.

'No one ever looks up,' Thursday thought. The pirate looked at Thursday quizzically, probably wondering why he wasn't dead.

Thursday didn't waste any time and lunged with the Fourth Key turning into a broadsword and in a single blow took off Feverfew's neck.

That was it. The sword killed all it touched, and even with Feverfew's sorcery he wouldn't have been able to regenerate.

The next part was laughably easy. The pirates were pretty much useless without their commander, and it was child's play to get them to co-operate, especially since he did have the Fourth Key with him. Thursday freed all the slaves, and decided to permanently recruit some for now, including one who was a sorcerer by the name of Dr. Scamandros who had odd tattoos across his face. A sorcerer was always helpful, especially since Thursday would have to wage war against a whole bunch of them in the not-so distant future.

He was told that there were other refugees in the mountains, guarded by the Third Part of the Will, so he decided to ignore them- he already had a part of the Will and it certainly drove him insane enough. He didn't need a new one.

Most of the next week on the island was spent reviewing Feverfew's various records describing where he had hidden his treasure and all, and like Thursday had guessed, the amount was not unsubstantial, though it would probably take decades for him and his soldiers to retrieve all of it.

But, there was a huge stash of treasure kept on the island itself, just enough to pay for all of Monday's debt. The only problem was the lack of working telephones on the Border Sea, and so Sir Thursday used Feverfew's puzzle to leave it, and had to go all the way back to Port Wednesday before he found one that worked.

It then took several weeks for him to bring troops and get all the treasure gathered so that he could take them to Tuesday. He hadn't actually told his common soldiers about the plan, but they didn't really dare question him.

The next difficulty was getting the Court of Days to sign a lease allowing him to pursue his debt against Monday for the First Key. He needed four signatures, and the thing was that he couldn't just saunter up to Saturday and ask, rather, he needed to do this as secretly as possible.

He had his own signature, of course, and it wasn't hard for him to visit Friday while she was experiencing so much she wasn't even cognizant of what she was doing when he got her signature, the only thing she checked was that she wasn't signing her Key away and then gave her sign and thumb-print.

The next person he visited was Tuesday, who he visited in the Far Reaches, who glanced at the document and said, "Saturday's not going to let you do this."

"She doesn't have to know," Thursday replied.

Tuesday frowned. "The Court of Days is located in her demesne. How will she not know?"

"She doesn't have much choice in matters of property, and if the majority of the Days sign on this, she won't be able to stop it. Not to mention that I've filed it with one of my moles in the Upper House," Thursday said.

"You have a mole in the Upper House?" Tuesday asked. "I never took you for the sneaky type."

"I have _one_ mole in the Upper House," Thursday said. "Saturday probably has thousands of them in my realm. Thousands of petitions are filed everyday, so Saturday probably won't notice until it is too late to stop me."

Tuesday scratched his chin. "But then again, why is it that I should help you? What's in it for me?"

"You've never been a real fan of Monday," Thursday said. "And anyway, once I have control over the Lower House, business will expand, and so will yours."

"What else?" Tuesday asked. He then frowned. "Oh yes, I forgot, why did you kill Feverfew? He was one of my agents, and gave me a nice cut out of the Border Sea's profits."

Thursday inwardly wanted to punch him, but restrained himself. "You mean what you stole from the Border Sea?" He then calmed down and said, "We can still get stuff from the Border Sea, and more than that. Think about it, the Border Sea is being poisoned by Nothing, and needs someone to push it back. Wednesday can't do it, but if we have the force of Three Keys, we can push the Nothing in the Border Sea back and stabilize it, and rule over it and get a much larger chunk of it than what you'd usually get."

That seemed to sell the idea to Tuesday, who signed and also pressed his thumb against the document. "Just one thing. You've got three Days right now, but Sunday and Saturday aren't going to sign, and neither is Monday, of course."

Thursday smiled, but it seemed not to be a genuine one. "You forgot one Day."

Tuesday's eyes widened. "You can't be serious. Not _her_."

Thursday grimaced. "I don't have much of a choice. Her Dawn has filed complaints against me for my interference in the Border Sea, and is coming to the Citadel this week. I'm going to make an appointment with her."

"What if she…" Tuesday asked.

"She won't," Thursday said. "And I'm sure she'll at least listen to what I have to say."

 **A/N: Thanks for reading everyone, and do please review if you liked. Thanks especially to both of you, Lost Piper's Child and Otter Seastar. Thursday isn't really sneaky or disloyal in the original books, but this is a rewrite, after all.**

 **Also, while Arthur says that whoever is touched by the Fourth Key dies, interestingly, in _Sir Thursday_ it is mentioned that Sir Thursday flings his sword accidentally when the Fourth Part of the Will bites his hand, and it chops off the ear of a Denizen. It is never mentioned that the Denizen died or anything. **


	3. Mister Monday III

Sir Thursday tried to remain calm as he watched, sitting in his chair in his office, while the Denizen in front of him, a tall woman wearing what looked like modified sharkskin, get redder and redder as her voice got louder and louder as she got angrier and angrier.

"And then I learned that Feverfew was dead," she let out a breath at that. "Thank you for that, Sir Thursday, but the thing is that a lot of his treasure is also gone, and when I started asking questions on where it was, I was told that apparently the Great Maze had taken it, and was now stationing troops in her Majesty's domain, though this does violate-"

"It does not violate the Accord," Thursday snapped. He rose up, and Wednesday's Dawn realized that she had said as much as she could have. "And for that matter, I do wish to discuss things further, but that only with Duchess Wednesday herself."

Wednesday's Dawn snorted (Sir Thursday would've normally flown into a rage at that, but he needed her to carry his message). "She's a huge whale, and is more likely to eat you than talk to you, or did you forget?"

"She's a whale because our Keys are holding her off," Thursday said curtly. "Send her a message, that if she agrees to meet with me, I'll remove the bonds that the Fourth Key have placed on her, which is around twenty percent of the bonds on her, _and_ I'll use its power to help her restrain herself and maintain her form."

Wednesday's Dawn's eyes widened. "Wait- you're telling me _that you're serious_?"

"Yes," Thursday growled. "And you better tell her, so that we may discuss this as soon as possible. Then come to me."

Wednesday's Dawn bowed and left. Thursday then called his Dusk inside.

"I have a mission for you," Thursday said as he closed the door of his office and ushered Dusk inside. "Is there anything that you'd like Marshal? Tea? Coffee?"

Marshal Dusk looked utterly surprised. Sir Thursday was offering him refreshments? What was next, Grim Tuesday opening a charity for war veterans?

"Um… no thanks?" Marshall Dusk said but regretted it.

"Whatever," Sir Thursday replied, seemingly not really bothered. "I've called you here because I have a mission for you, a top secret one at that, and right now I'm ordering you, on pain of death, to speak of this to no one, even to the other Days or your fellow Times."

Dusk nodded. "What do I have to do?"

Thursday took out a document from inside his desk and unfolded it. It was a map, but not describing the Great Maze. It seemed to detail a part of the Lower House.

Sir Thursday put a finger on a certain point. "This is the communication center of the Lower House, including the postal office, the telephone and telegram offices, and much more." His hand moved an inch to the left of that point. "This is where there are various cables and chutes leading things from the Lower House to other parts of the House. I need you to take a small force, quietly, and destroy all communications like this, as well as put to fire the rest of the offices. Tea time occurs after two o'clock, and is when the buildings will be empty, and would be a perfect time to strike."

Marshall Dusk understood the plan, but he couldn't understand the _why_ behind the plan. "That's fine sir, but why-"

"Do not ask me why," Thursday said. He wasn't angry, but there was a look in his eye that said, 'Don't ask. Do as you're told, otherwise it will end up badly for you.'

"But-doesn't this violate the Accord?" Marshall Dusk asked. "What if Monday presses charges?"

"He's too lazy to do so," Thursday said. "And anyway, the other Days enjoy sending spies everywhere, I see no reason to hesitate at doing this." Softly, he added, "Before he can press charges, I'll be in charge anyway."

Dusk didn't hear the last part. He gulped. "Is this all sir?"

"Yes," Thursday said and then raised his Key. "By the power of the Key, I bind you Dusk, and say that you shall tell no one of this, and carry out my orders to the letter."

A tiny cobweb of energy left the Fourth Key and entered Dusk's mouth. Thursday had never attempted to do anything like this before, but he reasoned that he had to in order to make Dusk keep his mouth shut.

Dusk left. Thursday knew the whole thing was illegal, but he didn't really care about that anyway. Monday couldn't press charges when he had been deposed of, and Thursday didn't want Monday appealing to the Court of Days when Thursday would submit the document. Best Monday had his Key taken from him before he even knew it.

Of course, destroying the telephone operators in the Lower House wouldn't really work, not if one had a Key, and could convince some other domain to take one's call. But Thursday knew Monday would be too lazy to bother, and though his Times would try, they didn't have the authority to start forging non-existant telephone lines.

* * *

A week later, Thursday was flying using a set of wings the army kept in reserve just in case, and was flying along with Wednesday's Dawn over the Border Sea. His Key was in his hand as he wondered about what to do.

Thursday, had of course, remembered how Wednesday had been deposed of, and how long it had hurt to be crushed by a whale. But Wednesday hadn't been in her full size then, and it seemed to actually break his mind to even consider just how big she was.

Thursday thought about it. Currently, five Keys were working against Wednesday, so him removing the Fourth Key's power should have decreased the enchantment by twenty percent, but the Seventh Key was the main force binding the enchantment. Still, if Thursday used his Key to lessen the effects of the other Keys also, it might've helped.

"I, Sir Thursday, hereby remove the sorcerous bindings that I placed using the Fourth Key on Wednesday, and also use it to oppose the bindings made by the other Keys," Thursday said and his sword began to glow bright. Nothing really appreciable happened, at least, nothing he could make out but then he began comparing Wednesday's size to his hand and noticed that she was getting smaller. It wasn't a lot smaller, but even a decrease of ten or twenty percent was huge when you were as big as Wednesday.

"Key!" Thursday shouted. "Help Wednesday restrain her hunger and help her maintain her normal form!"

The Key glowed, and Wednesday began to grow smaller, and smaller, and finally reached a small island.

"Good luck then," Wednesday's Dawn said as she flew off.

"You're not going to come?"

"I'll be watching. You know, from a safe distance," Wednesday's Dawn said and flew away.

A bead of sweat fell down Thursday's face. Even Wednesday's Dawn was afraid to be near her. Truth be told, Thursday had thought, the entire week, if he was being crazy about coming to Wednesday. Thoughts of being swallowed by a whale filled his mind at night, and it occurred to him that while the Key would protect him to some extent, a death by drowning would be the far worst, and it wouldn't save him from losing an arm or leg to a huge whale.

He landed on the island to see Duchess Wednesday, clutching the Third Key, though she was shaking uncontrollably, probably at the effort at maintaining her form.

Sir Thursday landed about twenty feet away from her. He was prepared to run if necessary. Soldier's pride had its place, but not when you were facing a leviathan whale.

"Duchess Wednesday," Sir Thursday said.

Wednesday stared at him with a forlorn look in her eyes. "Traitor… backstabber… _oath-breaker_ …"

Thursday fidgeted nervously. "Um yeah, I did all that, but that's not why I'm here, you know. I did remove my Key's binding on you for a reason."

Thursday held up his document with the seal of three of the Days. He didn't feel like giving it to Wednesday to read, since he was afraid that she'd eat it, and he was _not_ in the mood to go and try to retrieve it from her stomach like they had tried with Saturday's clipboard. Lady Friday wasn't even here this time.

"I've bought Monday's debt, and I want to pursue charges against him and claim his Key," Thursday said. "I need the sign of one other Morrow Day, and I know no one else to turn to."

Wednesday snorted. "You're a vile piece of slime like always."

Thursday shrugged. He couldn't blame her for her animosity towards him. "That may be true, but it is also true that we can benefit each other mutually. If you sign it and I get Monday's Key, I will use it to lessen the bonds on you even further."

"Of course," Wednesday said. "Because you're an exemplary model of keeping one's word, aren't you?"

Thursday fidgeted. "I have no reason not to honor my word this time, and believe me, I've… changed. I no longer find it necessary to go around being her toy puppet. And I disagree with what we did to you. The Border Sea is going to fall apart."

"Empty words," Wednesday snarled. Suddenly, the belt buckle on her uniform popped off as her stomach expanded. She looked slightly like a pregnant woman.

"No, I really will use the First Key to help," Thursday said. "And I will also use the Key's powers to keep the Border Sea in check for you."

Wednesday's eyes widened as she realized what Thursday really meant. "Thief! What you really want is to encroach on my domain, something my Dawn said you've already started with!"

"You've got it all wrong," Thursday said, backpedalling and trying to find some common ground that they could agree on. "What I want is to overthrow Saturday. She's ruling the House all wrong, and we need to fix it."

"I agree," Wednesday said. "Which is why we need to free the Will. If you're really not her slave, then free your part of the Will."

"I can't," Thursday answered. "It will end up destroying the entire House, how can we do that? But I can return you partially to your old form, and when I take down Saturday, I'll try to find a way to return you back to normal quickly."

"I have nothing against Monday," Wednesday answered. "And quite a lot against you. You assisted the others in overthrowing me, while he didn't."

"Oh come one," Thursday said. "That's only because he was too lazy to do so, otherwise he'd have jumped in quite readily! Come on now, I know that we're not exactly best chums, but I am going to try and strike against Saturday, and that's something that we can both agree on, right?"

Wednesday's cheeks started puffing up. She only looked remotely humanoid now. "Saturday…. That…." Wednesday then began making some very strange noises regarding Saturday which Thursday guessed were probably not hymns composed in her honor.

"Give it to me," Wednesday said as she seemed to grow larger and larger. Thursday handed it over with a pen, and Wednesday signed it with the pen and pressed her thumb against it.

She then swallowed the pen and went for the document, though Thursday took it out of her hands before she could. Wednesday was growing much bigger now, and there was a hungry look in her eye as she watched Sir Thursday.

"Key! Take me away!" Sir Thursday screamed, then the Key pulled him away like some sort of rocket. Wednesday was coming closer now, and she nearly succeeded in biting off his leg, and she grew bigger, now looking completely like a whale, a whale that was coming for him, and Thursday could swear there was a sort of happy look in her eyes as she attempted to devour him…

Sir Thursday nearly shrieked like a little girl as Wednesday came close to devouring him once, but eventually he got out of reach and started panting heavily.

"Hello," someone said which made Sir Thursday jump and swing his sword wildly.

"Careful!" Wednesday's Dawn said as she ducked under it. "That thing kills whatever it touches."

"Don't sneak up on me like that!" Sir Thursday said, no longer his composed self.

"Nerves of steel, eh?" she asked and giggled like a schoolgirl. "You screamed like a little Piper's Child."

Thursday began composing himself and he reddened, embarrassed. "My business here is over."

"So will you stop encroaching upon the Border Sea?" Wednesday's Dawn asked.

Thursday did not feel like telling her about the document. "Actually, I've just begun."

He then sketched the steps to the Stair and went on it, eager to give the document to his mole in the Upper House. And maybe watch _Barney and Friends_ for a while. That usually cheered him up.

 **A/N: That ends our story for now. Thanks for reading, and do please review if you liked!**

 **Guest, thanks for your review (in some ways I think the Trustees were more interesting than Arthur) and also to you, Aquarius kills Foz. I think it might have been a typo, as it mentioned that the Denizen screamed after his ear was cut off by the Fourth Key, but if it does kill instantly, shouldn't he have been unable to scream?**

 **Also, one thing that confused me through this is just how the House's telephone system is supposed to work. I assumed it worked on wires, but then remembered that most of the House was dissolved and yet telephones still seemed to work in places like the Monday's Atrium, though for some reason they don't work in the Border Sea (as there are no telephone poles, but then again the entire Lower House was destroyed and Arthur could still make a call while Nothing had dissolved most of the Lower House, and presumably all the telephone poles too. Also, no telephone poles are mentioned in the Great Maze on any of the tiles, and yet they still work. Also, it is mentioned that both telephone and telegrams are under the control of the Lower House and Far Reaches mainly, but both realms get dissolved. So just where are these guy's offices located? So, I tried writing some modification saying you needed a Key to access a non-existing line.**


	4. Mister Monday IV

Thursday waited a few days before filing the form, mainly because he had heard from his mole that Saturday would be going away for a visit to the Middle House soon, and that seemed to be the perfect time to do it.

* * *

Saturday was not happy. She generally was not happy as her baseline mood, but it was worse today. Friday had called her because she had some questions on how to better sorcerously modify human memories and such. Saturday would have normally refused, but the thing was that working in the Upper House had become so humdrum that she thought she needed a distraction to cheer her up.

It had had the opposite effect.

Things weren't much better in her tower. The building was not going as fast as it should have, and they still weren't close enough to try and launch themselves upwards. She entered the room that was made for her at the top and dried herself.

She collapsed in her bed and went to sleep, with the noise of the rain turning into a soothing background music.

Sometime later, though it felt almost instantly later, she was woken up abruptly by someone knocking on one of the iron pillars near her room at the top. She woke up and scowled as she found out it was her Noon.

"What is it?" she snapped. Noon better have had a good reason for waking her up, or else…

"There is something extremely urgent, Majesty," Noon curtly said, though he did have a faint look of fear in his eyes. "This was just passed in the Court of Days a few days ago."

Noon walked up to her and handed her a thick piece of parchment, which looked crisp but oddly enough felt slimy to the touch. As Saturday moved it to look at it, the parchment glowed with four almost impossibly seals shining at once, so she had to avert her gaze. Once the shining had dimmed down somewhat, she read the document.

A deep breath left her as her hands began trembling. "Thursday… what has that fool done?"

Noon didn't reply as he knew it was a rhetorical question, though he did have trouble figuring those kinds of things out at times.

She read it again. "Why wasn't this brought to my attention?"

"We're not entirely sure," Noon said, "but it appears it was filed in one of the lower courts initially, a court in particular that really doesn't pay much attention to these sorts of details, and was passed on and on, and everyone assumed that since it had the signature of the Four Days, it was something that you already knew about. It was passed and approved by a head court two days ago."

Saturday snarled. It was too late to try and delay it in the bureaucracy of the Court of Day. The document did give Monday a year in House Time to respond though, which meant that Monday was still in charge of the Lower House. For now.

"I want a telephone!" Saturday snarled and one appeared right next to her. She screeched into it, "GET ME THURSDAY! NOW!"

The operator had the sense not to ask and there was silence for about twenty seconds before a voice on the other end said, "Hello?"

"This is me!" Saturday shouted. "Are you completely out of your mind? Don't even get me started on how you've attempted to usurp Monday. How did you get Wednesday's signature?"

"Not really much of your concern how I got it," Thursday answered, seeming almost bored. "I just thought that Monday was wasting his time sleeping for so long in the Lower House, and it needed some better management, and who better to give it than me?"

"What makes you think that I'm going to let this slide?" Saturday asked.

"I personally don't see what you can do about it," Thursday answered. "I have the signature of four of the Days. The only way to counter that is to get Sunday to make an edict negating it, and something tells me he won't bother. Then again, you could always pay Monday's debt for him, and that would settle things down."

Saturday flared up at the thought of Sunday.

"By the way," Thursday asked, "why do you even care so much? It's not like anyone really bothers with Monday. Unless of course, that thing Friday said, about you wanting to be Monday's wife instead of-"

"Keep quiet about that!" Saturday snarled. She didn't want to remember Lady Friday's virtual reality simulator.

"If that's it, I need to have a talk to you about our budget," Thursday said. "You've only given-"

"I've given you more than you need," Saturday said.

"The next campaign is coming up!" Sir Thursday protested. "And Grim Tuesday's jacked the price of powder up again. I have over three thousand sharpshooters who-"

"What do you need three thousand sharpshooters for?" Saturday asked. "It only took three hundred Spartans to fend off the bulk of the Persian army."

"Actually, it was three hundred Spartans and an axillary force of-" Thursday didn't get any further as Saturday had cut the phone.

Saturday ran her fingers through her hair. It was very important regarding who disconnected the phone, the one who disconnected always had the psychological advantage. That last time Thursday had been the one to do it, an unforgivable offense in Saturday's mind.

Saturday had the rest of the day to cool off, and then began thinking that the whole thing was ridiculous. Just what was she so angry at Thursday for? Truth be told, she was actually slightly jealous that _she_ hadn't thought of the idea first. Having another domain under her palm would've been a great asset, as well as having another Key when she would confront Sunday. The whole plan was amazing, which caught her off guard since it was a large departure from what she expected Thursday to do.

As a matter of fact, Saturday thought that it might even be beneficial, considering that Monday had nearly gotten his part of the Will released. Not to mention that while she _could_ have paid off Monday's debt for him, it would have left the Upper House with a substantial lack of funds she needed for various things like pilfering and building up the tower, and didn't seem worth the trouble merely to spite Thursday.

She considered paying off Monday's debt and then charging him for it, and then taking his Key like Thursday was doing, but then realized that she wouldn't be able to get the four signatures required. Sunday wouldn't help her, and she doubted Tuesday and Friday would want to unless it involved something that threatened their Domains. As for Thursday, Saturday could order him to sign… but she wasn't so sure that he would agree. He might just disagree to spite her, after all, and that would end her plan right then and there.

All in all, the whole thing seemed pointless, Saturday realized as she went back to bed after a full day of work. This wasn't really going to change anything, and she preferred channeling her energy into trying to strike that pompous cheater who reigned above her.

Not to mention it really didn't matter if Thursday did get the First Key. He was just a pawn after all.

Not like he will- or for that matter can do anything to stop me, Saturday thought as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Monday's Noon was pacing in Monday's Dayroom angrily. He had just gotten off a call with Lady Friday regarding payments for the Lower House's services, and had gotten a reply that went on the lines of "we really don't want to right now."

Technically a delay in payment meant that a fine would also be added to their fees, but Friday didn't seem to mind. Neither did the other Days.

It took some sleuthing for Noon to figure it out. He got the truth out from Friday's Dawn, who had served in the Army with him.

"Well, I basically heard Milady say this," Friday's Dawn said, "that Thursday has agreed to cancel all of the Day's fees if they refuse to pay on time. Not to mention I think some of them are worried since Monday almost let his part of the Will free. They think having Thursday in charge of the Lower House will mean that the Will can be held in check."

Monday's Noon growled as he remembered who was responsible for this whole mess. His brother, Dusk, who had been dipped into Nothing for his treachery. Dusk, who made Mister Monday look weak and unable to hold off the First Part of the Will.

Mister Monday, as you might have expected, had not been pleased when he had been served with that notice. Monday was slothful, but began attentive immediately regarding matters of his domain and of his Key. He had been even more upset when he round that the communications office of the Lower House had been demolished mysteriously, and he had ordered his Noon and Dawn to fix it and try to appeal to Saturday as quickly as possible.

It had taken three months for that, mainly because they could not get any supplies ready due to having their credit revoked and their Roundels were all being used to pay for telephone calls. They had to get them from demolishing other structures.

Three more months had passed since that. They weren't getting any further to paying off their debt.

Monday's Dawn sidled up to him. "Any luck on getting something, brother?"

"No," Monday's Noon replied. He was even wearier than usual. There were no longer three Times, and Monday had yet to choose another Dusk, and this increased the workload on the two of them. "The other Days have joined Sir Thursday in his conspiracy to take over the Lower House, either that or they've decided to turn their heads away at the thing and pretend it isn't happening."

"We have to try something," Monday's Dawn said. "We could try selling our ornaments and statues, and maybe melt the gold off of some documents, or go ahead and maybe even sell some of the lower Denizens to the Pit!"

Monday's Dawn looked slightly ashamed for a minute, the two of them well knew how Grim Tuesday treated his slaves.

"That won't work either," Noon said. "I've tried selling things, but there are no buyers. Not even Grim Tuesday, who's offering a rate for Denizens so low that we could sell everyone in the Lower House and still not have enough to pay even a tenth of our debt. The entire game has been stacked against Mister Monday."

"Then there's only one recourse," Monday's Dawn said. "We loot everything we need from the Secondary Realms."

Noon's eyes flashed. "That's interference, fair and blatant. And do you realize how much we owe? There's no way that we can take all of that without someone noticing."

"What does it matter?" Dawn asked. "We're going to lose anyway. And it's not as if the other Days can do anything if we take it all on a Monday, as that's still Mister Monday's Domain. The other Days will protest, but it isn't as if they can do anything about it. Sure, we might be fined and all, but what can they really do?"

"We'd end up destroying their entire economy, or their entire world," Noon said. He then sighed. "It just isn't about the treaty of the Days anymore. The Architect forbade interference, and on the level that we'd have to try to get the money from a world like Earth… we could essentially exterminate all of mankind."

"Then let it be," Dawn said darkly. "At least the Lower House will remain."

"We can't," Noon said. "The Will specified that a human Heir had to inherit it. To make sure that the Morrow Days would never exterminate all of humanity to make it unable to complete itself, the most powerful clause of the Will states that if the humans become extinct, than the Keys will lose their power. If we tried to take all the money we needed from Earth, or from some other planet, it isn't really going to work since there's not much that they have that is accepted as money here. Artworks are costly, but only the Grim really pays for them and he isn't accepting at the moment, and trying to get in enough gold will result in a lot of stealing and interference resulting in plagues and the like. The only things that Thursday really has to accept are House money and gold and silver. We could end up killing all of the mortals in the process of getting that much metal, and then Saturday might intervene with sanctions, or perhaps even Sunday himself if he thought that the threat was too much. Neither of them would want to lose power over their Keys."

"What about that time that Grim Tuesday crashed their stock market?" Dawn asked.

"He was reprimanded heavily for that," Noon said. "And to do something like that you need permission from the Court of Days, something we don't have."

A tear glistened on Dawn's cheek. "First Dusk… and now this, it's all too much."

Noon didn't turn her away as she rested her head on his shoulders. Her tears were getting his coat wet, and it had been a very expensive coat (though Grim Tuesday was only offering a price 0.00003% of what he had sold it to Noon for it) but he didn't turn her away.

Noon looked upwards, towards where Mister Monday was. Truth be told, the whole thing _might_ have been avoidable if Mister Monday would get up and do something about it. But Monday was now so slothful that even the thought of losing his kingdom wasn't enough for him to become functional for more than a few minutes.

Noon wondered about what was going to happen. He had visions of himself tearing into the Secondary Realms, blatantly looting and slaying with his sword until he had enough to pay off Thursday.

He sighed as he knew he could never do those things, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Sir Thursday had been getting progressively more nervous as Monday's deadline approached.

The thing was, on some level, he couldn't believe that he had actually succeeded and Saturday hadn't done anything real to stop him. Sure, she had also cut off the Army's funds, but that wasn't much of a problem now with Thursday also controlling much of the Border Sea. His program had expanded over the months and there were currently over two thousand of his soldiers on the Border Sea.

Then, the morning that the deadline expired, a package arrived for Thursday, and was on his desk suddenly though no one had kept it there. Somehow he just knew what it was, and opened it up like a small child would his Christmas presents to see the two halves of the First Key just lying there. They had probably delivered themselves once the stipulated time was up. Thursday picked them up and felt a strange warmth flow through him. He began reciting the words necessary to claim them. The two halves fused together to form a sword much like his own, though it was embroidered with gold and silver and seemed more ornamental than for actual war. Using it, he forced the Fourth Part of the Will to remain quiet, though it was oddly quite docile these days, though Thursday had never bothered to pay real attention to that.

He invited his Times in to join in a sort of celebration. His Times seemed to find it odd that Thursday had done so much, and Thursday had cautiously not let them in on his plan to take over the House. He hadn't told anyone about it, for that matter, save Drowned Wednesday, and she wasn't likely to do anything about it.

He then yawned and relaxed in his chair. At last, Thursday thought, some rest. Of course, he was going to strike against Saturday and all, but he had made enough moves for a couple of centuries and would use that time to oversee the Lower House and other things.

He was however, already sort of thinking of his next move. He would probably need another Key to take down Saturday, not to mention an army. Sure, he had one, but it wasn't nearly big enough to take down Saturday and all her forces.

But then again, Thursday thought, where was he going to get a huge army which would obey him and help him strike against Saturday?

Anyway, he had to concentrate on the upcoming Campaign, though it probably wouldn't be a big problem. It was just another regular battle against Nithlings, after all.

* * *

In a rather large worldlet outside of the Great Maze, the Piper was completing his preparations to assault the House.

Though, for that matter, he was currently taking a breather and admiring all that he had created on a small gilded throne he kept for himself.

"Sire," one of his officers asked. "How will we proceed with the invasion? Should we send a messenger to Thursday?"

"That's probably going to be useless," the Piper said. "None of the Days are going to surrender. Completely annihilating them is our best and only hope." He tapped his chin, or rather, his mask where his chin should have been, thoughtfully. "Then again, a message would be very military like." He stood up, opened his arms, and said, "Sir Thursday, you face an army led by the son of the Creator herself. You face an army so large it makes the ground shake when it marches, you face an army so large it could drink the Circascian Sea dry. Our soldiers are more numerous than the grains of sand in the Hadarac Desert. And all that our mighty commander asks in order for your lives to be spared is a small offering of earth and water as a sign of your submission."

A nearby Newnith raised his eyebrow. "All you want is some earth and water sire?"

"No," the Piper said. "I also want all of the Keys and to be the Rightful Heir. Seriously though, what kind of army demands earth and water as a sign of submission? That's not even useful in anyway, you'd think that they'd at least ask for gold or weapons or something like that. Anyway, we need to get our plans ready. The time for the Campaign is near, and most likely at most two gates will be open simultaneously. I do believe our plans are quite clear?"

There were shouts of affirmation from the Newniths and then discussion regarding the upcoming invasion.

* * *

Saturday was staring at her three Times with a curiously blank expression. Her Noon and Dusk were oddly fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable with being called.

"My orders right now are simple," Saturday said. "Thursday has recently claimed the First Key. Now, he's also been sending troops into the Border Sea on some sort of pretentious talk about obtaining what is his, but I want to know more about what he's doing just in case. And especially, I want to know how he got Wednesday's seal. It probably will not affect me, but just in case."

 **A/N: And that ends another chapter. Thank you to all of you who read. Otter Seastar, I somehow don't think that Sir Thursday could actually kill Duchess Wednesday if he hit her with his Key. Sure, the book does say that Thursday's Key could kill with a touch, but there's always an exception for pretty much everything in the Keys to the Kingdom Franchise. You know, like how only Sunday's Key can free the Will but the Mariner's Harpoon also does, the Keys protect against all harm but this can somehow be bypassed with sorcery, etc.**

 **So I'm guessing that if Thursday did stab Wednesday, she wouldn't die, courtesy of either her huge size or her Key's power to shield her from harm.**

 **LostPipersChild, I agree, the telephone system doesn't make much sense as to where the guy's offices are located and how Saturday managed to subdue them or anything. Also, it makes you wonder why, if the Morrow Days didn't want the Will to be complete, they could've just exterminated all mortal life. Yeah, that would be cruel, but it wasn't like they really cared anyway.**

 **Thanks for reading again, and I always appreciate a review.**


	5. The Piper I

One great thing about the Great Maze was that the discipline of the soldiers and the fact that it was running relatively well meant that Sir Thursday had loads of time to take to look into matters in other parts of the House, and could very easily leave the majority of the rest of his work to his Times without it being much of an issue.

This was quite important as most of the Lower House was non-functioning and he had to spend two weeks there before he got mainly fed up of everything.

He did make sure to renew the enchantments containing the First Part of the Will though with both his Keys, ensuring that nothing save another Key would release it.

He was honestly not sure what to do with the now deposed Mister Monday. He considered just killing him, and while he was sure that none of the other Days would care if he did, it didn't seem to sit right with him. He tried attempting to cure Monday of his sloth using his Key, but that didn't seem to work for some reason, so Monday was pretty much just locked up somewhere where he continued snoring day in and day out, which wasn't much of a change from what he normally did.

Thursday decided to leave Monday's Noon and Dawn in their places, but that still left the position of Dusk wide open, but Thursday had decided to put someone from the army in Dusk's position so that he would at least have one Time completely loyal to him from a military point of view.

Thursday mainly set about appointing people to replace vacant positions and all, but the sheer sight of the workload awaiting him was frightening and he left it after two weeks to start negotiating with Tuesday regarding what they were going to have to do about the Border Sea.

"As promised, I've forgiven the obligations and bills of the other domains to the Lower House," Thursday said to Tuesday as they were both standing on Port Wednesday, surveying the Border Sea. There were merchants milling about as usual, but there were also a couple of the Grim's Overseers and several soldiers of the army present as well. "However, that does leave the fact that the Lower House is severely underfunded, and wars are very expensive."

"And you intend to take that money from the Border Sea," Grim Tuesday replied.

"You can always have a cut," Thursday said. "But the thing is that for this to work, we also need to stabilize the Border Sea. Normally the Third Key would be required, but we can do almost as well if we have three Keys together. I've experimented using both my Keys and I've fixed about thirty areas where Nothing was impinging on the Border Sea."

"You've also managed to get an additional five thousand soldiers into the Border Sea," Grim Tuesday said. "How'd you manage that without it breaking the Accord?"

Thursday waved his hand dismissively. "It was relatively easy, all I had to do was leave some of Feverfew's treasure unclaimed, so that I can always have soldiers near where his treasure is left to guard over it, and then I wrote in various things like the soldiers need tea, and people to do paperwork with. Actually the majority of them came in by me assigning them as bodyguards, you know, I've given around every major Denizen a host of around seven hundred to protect him or her."

"Allegedly," Grim Tuesday said. "But my Overseers can't enter the Border Sea in that large a number."

"To combat that," Thursday said, "I can give over some of the treasure in the Border Sea to you, and in exchange you can station a small amount of Overseers, though I don't want it to be more than two hundred, in the Border Sea. Together then, our troops will filter through the various goods inflowing into the Border Sea, and sort of siphon a little off the top."

"Extortion. Protection money," Grim Tuesday said.

"Not really," Thursday answered. "It's more of a tax, _our_ unofficial tax, which is fine since we're stabilizing the Border Sea in place of Wednesday, after all."

"Hmmm," Grim Tuesday said. The idea was quite fine with him. "Only problem though is Wednesday's Dawn. She isn't going to like it."

"Which is why it needs to be done in secret," Thursday said. "Sure, the soldiers will be there, but she can't really do anything against them as long as they're on official business. The stealing and taxation part, however, will happen in secret. I've employed agents to track her every move and modified Ephemerides of my soldiers so that they know when it is safe. I considered removing her completely, but then thought better of it."

"Getting rid of her?" Grim Tuesday asked. "You can't possibly mean…"

"Yes, I do," Thursday replied. "It wouldn't be hard, just a stroke of a blade, or a cannonball misfired, or something of the other, but the thing is that she is helpful in taking care of other miscreants which wind up in the Border Sea. However, it will be helpful to weaken the Border Sea's government. Several of their high ranking officials haven't spent their centennial service in the Army yet, so I can recruit them and place gaps in their command, though the threat of recruitment I think is enough for us to get them to do as we say. Most of the stealing will be done by the leftovers of Feverfew's crew though, I suppose, we'd call them _privateers_ instead of pirates."

Thursday then took out a document. "The Border Sea is encroached by nothing in over thirty-seven thousand places. Normally with the Third Key we could fix that from Port Wednesday itself, but as we don't have it, we need to individually visit the locations."

"That's an official document of the Border Sea," Grim Tuesday noticed. "How did you get that?"

"It was written by Wednesday's Dawn and distributed to some of her top officers," Thursday said. "Though it wasn't difficult to obtain using a combination of bribery and blackmail."

Tuesday rubbed his forehead. "Are you telling me we'll have to wander into the Border Sea and visit over thirty-seven thousand locations individually?"

"Actually, it'll work even if we're within ten miles of the location," Thursday replied. "But you are right in that it will take quite some time. And I already have my hands full trying to manage the Lower House. So you'll have to do most of it, if you want a cut of the profits."

Grim Tuesday frowned, clearly displeased, but he did need Thursday to have any chance of getting a foothold in the Border Sea. "Tell me one thing, I remember Port Wednesday was smaller the last time that I was here. How did it get bigger?"

"I used my Keys to reduce the bonds on Wednesday," Thursday replied. "I did it in exchange for her signature, and used the First Key as well. I think she's now around fifty-five to sixty percent of her original size, so a lot of ground has been recovered, and there are even some telephone poles which we're trying to get working, though that's rather difficult with there being no one to officially manage the task."

Grim Tuesday looked around. "But what if she frees herself or something? And do you know what Saturday will do if she finds out?"

Thursday shrugged as if it wasn't important. "She's just smaller now, but still not able to actively direct her Key's powers to any real extent that would matter. And as for Saturday, she still isn't going to bother really doing anything about it."

Tuesday took a minute to take in all that they were doing, which was essentially illegally dividing up the Border Sea. And they were doing it on a level that was somehow very proficient and totally uncharacteristic with what was expected from Thursday.

Thursday handed Grim Tuesday the list. "My soldiers should be able to carry on everything without much hassle. I have to attend to the Lower House now, though it is going to be several centuries before it is efficient enough to even fund itself, let alone make a profit for the Army to rely on."

* * *

"So, how many?" Dusk asked.

"I'm not sure," Dawn replied. "Usually thirty thousand is the general number."

"Sir Thursday mentioned he wanted to test the army this time," Noon said. "I'm guessing that means that we want more than the normal amount of Nithlings to enter."

"There were those two times when more than a hundred thousand were allowed to enter and three of the gates were open," Dawn said. "Should we do that again?"

"A hundred thousand seems a bit too much," Noon said. "Now, I'm sure that we can handle it for that matter, but the thing is that with Sir Thursday and his Key gone, or rather his Keys now, I don't think it is something that we should be risking. Plus, Sir Thursday did say that we could do pretty much anything we wanted with this Campaign and that he was too busy in other matters."

"I just had a bit of a crazy idea," Dusk said. "What if we opened all four gates at once?"

"That's against the rules," Noon replied.

"Sure, but Sir Thursday did say that we could do whatever we want," Dusk said with a mischievous grin.

" _Within limits_ ," Dawn added. "Alright. One hundred thousand might be a bit too much, though I don't really think so with Nithlings being unorganized and all. Sure, we might lose some soldiers, but it isn't like the Maze would be in any real danger."

"Which is why I say open all four gates," Dusk said. "Come on, we could say that it was all an accident. Plus, with Sir Thursday not here we can go around and show our tactical prowess. I don't want to be facing a small army."

"No four gates," Noon said. "But I suppose based on everything we've been talking about, eighty thousand Nithlings would suffice?"

There was some more talk on specifics and all, but that number was agreed upon and information on it updated to all officer Ephemerides and the plan relayed to Colonel Nage who would be in charge of opening the gates for the Nithlings to enter the Great Maze.

* * *

"So, generally they allow between twenty to thirty thousand Nithlings into the Great Maze," the Piper said. "It was twenty-four thousand during my stint in the Army. Of course, we can't possibly expect to lead all of our millions of soldiers into the army at once. So, we will be sending an initial force of our best trained soldiers with the purpose of laying siege to the Boundary Fort and opening the gates again. Theoretically, should this plan fail, we could always try to ram through the gates, but Mother made then especially strong, so I'm not entirely sure that plan will work."

His topmost generals nodded. "Yessir! We will lay siege to the Boundary Fort and take it, as you wish, sir!"

"It should not be too difficult," the Piper said. "They'll probably understaff the Boundary Fort, as usual, and expect for something like wildlife to distract you all with hunting or something or the other. As for the Spike, we will send it later after the initial assault when we've gathered more information." The Piper then flipped open his Ephemeris, a relic from his stint in the Glorious Army of the Architect, and noted that they were going to let in eighty thousand Nithlings.

That wouldn't make it too hard for them to take the Switch Room, the Piper thought.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you liked it. Thanks for the review, HumanoidPatronus. Also, it is never really mentioned if Saturday knew about the Piper and they were colluding somehow or just something else.**


	6. The Piper II

The Great Maze, ideally, was supposed to be a place of equality among the House. Here, all recruited, regardless of rank, came as less than Nothing gobs in the officer's eyes, and gradually worked their way up in rank.

In theory, that was how it was supposed to be, though needless to say problems arose when the most higher-ranked Denizens, those who occupied positions so high that their deaths would be great blows to the House, as well as its security, were eventually, quietly, secretly given special treatment. After all, the point of the Great Maze was to defend the House from invasion, and if one of the higher officers died during a make-believe fight with Nithlings, it would have the opposite effect and weaken other parts of the House's security.

The Architect's own children as well, though the Old One had wanted them to work like normal Denizens, had been given special privileges in the army. The Piper, for that matter, had been immediately promoted to Marshall, and the Architect herself had forged several Denizens to follow him around during his stint as his bodyguards, and her orders had always been to protect the Piper and obey him. She wasn't going to let some random Nithling eat up her son.

A few of those were still living, and though none of them were in high posts, the highest-ranking among them was a Sergeant of the Moderately Honorable Artillery Company, they were still privy to information and sent it to the Piper using old archaic methods the rest of the House had forgotten, as they were still loyal to him as a matter of their creation and the purpose with which the Architect had made them.

"Hmmm," the Piper read one such missive. "This is a rather interesting piece of news. It appears that Sir Thursday has somehow managed to coerce Monday to hand over the First Key, and as such has been delving in various things across the Border Sea and such. Most importantly though, it appears that he has left the Great Maze for now." The Piper tapped his mask with a gloved finger. "This seems to deviate quite from what I expect from Sir Thursday…. Hmmm."

"On the one hand this seems like good news," the Piper said. "He will not be here for our initial attacks, and by the time the Marshalls, when they realize that they've lost, call for help, it will be far too late. On the other hand, now he has two Keys with him, making any confrontation with him…. Problematic…."

The Piper returned to a table set with a map of the Great Maze, where he was planning his strategies.

In truth, if the Piper had to, he compared the tactics and organization of the Glorious Army of the Architect to the Roman Armies.

The Piper sighed as he thought about Rome. His surrogate mother had been Roman, and when he had been a child, whenever he spent his time in the Secondary Realms, Rome had always been a favorite haunt of his.

Basically, the Army of the Architect consisted of a large number of well-trained soldiers. They didn't have a specific army plan, though they did have infantry, cavalry, and artillery as the Romans did. And as the Romans, they were highly disciplined and well versed at obeying orders as well as highly equipped. But that was about it. Beyond that, they didn't usually carry much of a plan besides from standing around, placing their units strategically, and then hoping for the best. Their discipline and their ability to maintain formation usually let them carry the day.

They won almost all the time though, for their enemies were disorganized and not as well armed as they were, whether they would be 'Nithlings' or 'barbarians.'

The Piper snorted. It wasn't much to beat your enemies when you outnumbered them, had better weapons, training, and discipline. Not to mention Tectonic Strategy to boot. The Army of the Architect sure had high opinions of themselves despite this.

In that sense, the Piper realized, he was more of a general like Hannibal, ready to charge across the Alps with the elephants and frighten the Romans like they never had before.

Even now, the Piper remembered how when one time, when he was visiting his surrogate mother and he had thrown a tantrum, she had put a finger to his lips and said, "Shh! Hannibal is at the gates child, and if you don't stop, he'll hear!"

The Piper snapped out of his reverie. The gates were going to be opened today, and there were countless details that he needed to finalize.

He would not be leading the charge, of course. That was for his loyal creations to do.

"Now, the plan is as follows. When the gates are open," the Piper said, "do not go and swarm the Boundary Fort immediately. They will expect that we will go to the adjacent tiles first, and a force of around twenty thousand should be dedicated to this and going to various tiles around the Maze. Only around ten thousand soldiers should attempt to put a fight for the Boundary Fort. The rest will scatter and pretend to hunt. We will let the Army of the Architect think that they are winning, and even feign retreat. This will likely boost their confidence enough that they will stop defending and attempt to attack, which is when the others will come in and crush them, and begin a full assault on the Boundary Fort. Once the Switch Room has been taken, we will begin loading the Spike. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir!"

* * *

It may have been called the 'Glorious' Army of the Architect, but there wasn't that much that was glorious about it. Sure, being in the House did mean that they could disregard the messier parts of most human armies, like smelly latrine ditches, fleas, dysentery, military brothels and the STDs that accompanied them, and long supply trains, but that still didn't meant that it was a messy business, and also generally a boring one.

The three Marshalls were busy like worker bees as they were detailing out what to do with the campaign.

"Okay, I say that we go with something new this time," Marshall Dusk said. "Like, let's try out some new weapons. Like crossbows. Or even normal bows. Or maybe we can try a-"

"For the last time," Marshall Noon said, "We are not suddenly changing our war tactics at the last minute."

"We don't have war tactics," Marshall Dusk said. "We just throw ourselves at the enemy with our formations until they scatter."

"And has that ever failed?" Marshall Noon retorted.

"It's bo- _ring_ ," Marshall Dusk said.

"They've worked all the time," Marshall Noon said. "As the mortals say, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it!'"

"But what about what the Mongols would do-" Marshall Dusk began as the two others groaned. While most of the Army of the Architect swore by the Roman's method of war in general, Marshall Dusk was a rather large Mongol fanboy and had even insisted on forming a division based off of them, before Sir Thursday had forbidden it because the Army of the Architect didn't have enough money to buy ten to fifteen Not-Horses for several thousand soldiers.

"Don't get started about the Mongols again," Marshall Dawn said. "I've been getting reports from the Borderers about what's happened. The gates were opened four hours ago, and the Nithlings have spread about the various tiles. A small group attempted to attack the Boundary Fort, but had been repelled and are pulling back. Colonel Nage is wondering if he should go ahead with sending a raiding part to attack them, and if so, how large it should be."

"Tell him to send the majority of his garrison- about eighty percent," Marshall Noon said.

Marshall Dawn frowned. "That would deplete his reserves considerably."

"Yes, but best to take out these troublesome Nithling before they accumulate too quickly," Marshall Noon said. "And what is he afraid of? These are Nithlings- brainless scum born from Nothing. They'll be routed easily."

"'Brainless scum?'" Marshall Dusk asked. "You sound stressed out brother." He flashed a smile. "You should find a way to reduce that stress. Say- like doing the hokey-pokey?"

Both Dawn and Dusk laughed while Noon looked at them sourly. "May I ask why one of your eye's is yellow?" Noon retorted to Dawn.

Dawn blinked and blushed. "Oh, it's a contact from that Halloween party. I was just trying it on this morning…"

They then spent over an hour talking about stuff in no way related to military matters.

The talks then went on to where the other tiles were going and directing other companies of soldiers in the Maze on what to do with the Nithlings that were going to arrive next to them.

They were about to wrap up when a page walked up to them, breathless, and saluted.

"Sir! Urgent report sir, that Colonel Nage has been killed and his raiding party has been all but annihilated!"

Marshall Noon whirled around. "What? Explain!"

"Sir, according to our reports sir, Colonel Nage exited with his raiding part to attack the enemy. It initially went well and the enemies continued to retreat, drawing them further away from the Boundary Fort when suddenly they stopped retreating and began attacking. Almost out of nowhere, more of them appeared riding Not-Horses and began attacking it from all sides. They were decimated within a few hours. The amassed force then went to renew its attack on the Boundary Fort. End report, sir!"

Marshall Noon looked grim. They continued sending out orders and waiting for reports, and one soon came that the Switch Room had been taken.

"Not good," Marshall Noon said. "Who's going to tell Thursday?"

Noon and Dusk both said "Not it!" fast before Dawn could, and she groaned inwardly.

Maybe, she thought, he won't be so angry if I wear that Halloween costume, as she rolled a yellow contact lens in her fingers. He did seem to look at her funny whenever she wore it.

 **A/N: First of all, I'd like to comment on the very low mortality rate within the Great Maze. Very few of the soldiers seemed to die, and a lot seemed to have been in service for a long time, indicating that they didn't either fight much or always put the new recruits on the front line (something, incidentally, that the Romans also did) or something. I don't believe that they didn't die that much, because as far as we've been told, Nothing wounds fester until you die. Also, since the campaigns last probably not more than one year that meant that most recruits would spend 99% of their time not actually fighting.**

 **That said, I also doubt that the higher officers would be allowed or rather forced to fight in dangerous conditions. I mean, what if it was one of the Days? If they died, their Key would be lost, and so that would be a big blow to the House's security. Same goes for the Architect's three children, would she really risk losing them for some sort of pretend battle? Speaking of which, it is odd how their surrogate mothers are never mentioned again. Did they die? Did they become immortal because the Architect had been possessing them? I know that maybe Sunday wouldn't have that much attachment to his mother, but I had a feeling that maybe the Piper would've at least visited the human whom he had been born from.**

 **I also touched quite a bit on Roman warfare, and the way I described the House's fighting style is based on what was on the books. Some might say that the Romans didn't fight like I portrayed them, but I was talking about how they were before they were crushed by Hannibal. Interestingly, a typical Roman legionnaire would also spend a large portion of his time doing no actual fighting, but their mortality rate would no doubt be increased due to disease. Not to mention that Thursday is kind of like a general going against the politicians and claiming power for himself, like Caesar or Octavian.**


	7. The Piper III

**A/N: I know I said before that the Great Maze is pretty small, but I'm returning to mentioning it as I took another hard look at it. The lowest House precedence mentioned was 9,665,785,553 by Pravuil, when he was pretending to be a 'Coal-Collator Very Ordinary Tenth Grade,' though I'm assuming he was a spy and all the title and rank were true as he had no reason to lie about them. I'm guessing Pravuil wasn't the lowest ranking Denizen in the House, so that means that there are around 10 billion Denizens at least total in the House.**

 **Returning to the Great Maze though, as far as I could tell, it probably didn't have more than 100-150 thousand Denizens in total, and I doubt it would be more than 300,000 at maximum. That's a pretty insignificant amount of the House's population, though I guess that would make sense if every Denizen has to do a century of service so they have quite a pool to rely on, though obviously they'd run out of Denizens at some point in time. Also, the area of Sir Thursday's domain isn't really that big, only an insignificant million square miles or so (which is one third of Australia) and most of it is uninhabited. All land on earth by comparison is seventeen million miles. The House seems to have more Denizens than we have people, but a lot of the Demesnes we've seen seem to be so tiny like Saturday's (which was just one big tower, and that didn't have many floors on it). So I'm assuming the others must be huge by comparison to fit that many people in it, meaning that Thursday and Saturday probably get the short end of the stick by having so little people and very little land.**

 **It is also mentioned by Dame Primus that even if Arthur's three domains declared war on Sir Thursday while he was in the Great Maze, they would lose, which is odd, considering that since Sir Thursday has only around a few hundred thousand of what is at least ten billion Denizens, so I'm assuming that the other domains must have billions of Denizens by default unless Garth Nix entered a few too many digits in Mister Monday so that must mean that they** _ **hugely**_ **outnumber the Denizens in the Great Maze. Sure, soldiers might have more training and stuff, but if we assume that Arthur could muster up at least a billion conscripts, that's over a 1000:1 ratio which is enough to outnumber anyone to the point where skills don't matter. Not to mention they'd have Nothing-based powder, cannons, and Not-Horses, and the total strength of Three Keys. Something tells me Dame Primus was just too lazy/couldn't bother trying.**

Thursday had left his place in the Border Sea, where Tuesday was fixing things. They had managed to get about five percent of the places where Nothing had encroached on the Sea, and it was projected to be complete within seven to ten years. The phone lines were also coming across nicely.

As for Saturday, Thursday was sure that she knew what was going on by them through her spies and so that meant that she was choosing to leave Tuesday and him alone for now, and probably concentrate on her plan which involved breaching the Incomparable Gardens.

He was currently trying to fix the Lower House, something which was proving endlessly frustrating. Monday had left so much stuff pending that Thursday was honestly very tempted to just scream and run off and deal with everything five years later. He had considered replacing Monday's old Times, but then decided against it as he hadn't even yet decided anyone who could take the position of Monday's Dusk.

One thing that amazed him was how positively stupid the lower ranked Denizens were. Sure, the Army Denizens weren't all geniuses, but the Architect had for the most part made them all more or less the same instead of the wide spectrum he saw in the House's other clerical Denizens. Then again, he supposed it was a quantity over quality problem in the rest of the House.

Regardless, Thursday knew he needed many more soldiers, and the Lower House had a rich supply of Denizens that he could use to train for when they would lay siege to the Upper House. Most of them were useless- even the Reservists, but he had a group of them ready for basic revision before he would begin exporting massive quantities of Denizens to the Great Maze for further training. That would happen after the current campaign was over, of course.

Speaking of which, he had received a phone call regarding the campaign and how the Boundary Fort had somehow been taking. He badly wanted to punch something (though his rages had subsided somewhat and he was trying to control his anger, he still found himself striking the occasional person) but then calmed down, told Dawn to deal with it, and threw the phone away before he began concentrating on other matters.

* * *

"So, all he did was tell us to deal with it," Dawn said. "But I could tell he was angry."

"How did they even manage to take down so many well-trained Denizens?" Dusk asked.

"They might have had more Not-Horses," Dusk muttered. "As the mortals say, 'It is better, in war, to have an inferior number of infantry, and a superior cavalry, than the other way around.'"

Noon frowned. "I don't think anyone said that."

"Someone did," Dusk said with certainty. "Though it might not have been exactly those words. Point taken, but a Denizen on a horse is not equal to a Denizen on foot. They probably had more Not-Horses."

"But they're Nithlings!" Noon said and banged his fist against the table. "They can't do squat! How do they co-ordinate an attack like that?"

"The real thing though is that we need to start winning, and fast," Dawn said. "And perhaps take back the Boundary Fort."

"First we should let the Nithling spread out," Noon said. "And then defeat them piecemeal. As long as more don't come in-"

"They've taken the Switch Room-" Dusk interjected.

"-And," Noon said, "the controls of which were made by the Architect herself, which would take an extraordinarily accomplished sorcerer to manipulate."

"Nithlings have been known to manipulate sorcery occasionally," Dusk muttered.

"Crude, Nothing-based sorcery, not the finesse that is probably needed to operate the Switch Room. And even if they have, well, what are we going to do? Sit here and whine about it?" Noon banged his fist on the desk for emphasis.

"We let the enemy come to us," Dawn said. "And split itself, and tire itself out. If these are like normal Nithlings, they'll eventually give in to infighting and their army's own weight will cause it to collapse on itself."

"Regarding that," Dusk said, "we've gotten some pretty troubling reports from our scouts and various survivors. They describe the opposing army as being well-organized, with properly designed uniforms and formations. And they don't disappear when they die."

Noon raised an eyebrow. "They don't… disappear?"

"No," Dusk said. "Their bodies remain there, oozing some sort of black blood. They don't sound like Nithlings from their description- more like some sort of Near-Creations."

"Those would need some sort of sorcerer behind it," Dawn muttered. "You don't think it could be Saturday, could you?"

"What makes you think that?" the other two whispered simultaneously, not bothering to point out that she was technically committing a high offense against the Army's command by saying that.

"Well, Saturday, I guess, hasn't liked what Sir Thursday did to get the First Key," Dawn said. "And I've overheard him muttering things like 'Saturday can't find out' and other stuff like he's wondering what she's doing."

"But there are over eighty thousand of them," Dusk pointed out. "Do you really think that she'd take the time out to make so many of them?"

"So we're looking for someone with the sorcerous ability to create an army, and also a huge amount of time on their hands to make one. Seeing their size, I'm guessing that would mean at least two to three centuries of doing nothing except this?" Noon muttered. "I'd say maybe Feverfew, but he's dead and if he had that much skill he'd have taken over the Border Sea a long time ago. I can't see it being one of the Morrow Days though."

"Who else has enough power to do so?" Dawn asked, rubbing her hands together.

"Well, the real question is what we do," Dusk said. "Now, I have an interesting idea…"

The other two groaned. "Not again," Noon said. "Every time you get an interesting idea, it always turns out to be ridiculous."

That was true. Dusk mainly got his ideas from mortal armies, and his ideas up till now included feigned retreats, which they wouldn't do because the Army did not retreat; Mongol phalanx attack, which they couldn't do because they would need too many horses; and some sort of weird weapon that mixed up silver and salt and fired it at their enemies. He had even had this idea once to make Nothing-based clouds and use them to rain Nothing droplets on their enemies without regard for the many ways in which such a plan would inevitably go wrong.

"But this one isn't bad!" Dusk said. "All we need to do now is fortify the areas that we're controlling. I say we do so first…. by building a giant wall!"

"Ugh!" came the two replies.

"This is your worst idea yet," Dawn said. "And that's saying something. You do realize that the tiles change every single day, don't you? We can't actually make a huge wall across the Maze without it being broken to pieces."

Dusk slumped in his chair. "Meanies," he said under his breath.

* * *

"Careful with that!" the Piper barked to the Denizens carrying the huge Spike. "I spent a century working on that, and a century making all of you, so keep that in mind!"

A hundred thousand more of his soldiers had entered the Maze. He was trying to go for stealth, though he didn't expect that he no one would notice over a hundred thousand soldiers walking into the Great Maze.

Up till now the taking of the Boundary Fort had not been challenged by any large force, which made it a nice place to lay down for a while as his soldiers wandered around the Great Maze, probing its defenses. True, he would soon join them, but after they had established a strong foothold in the Great Maze. It would not do for him to go and fight on the front lines, after all.

He sighed. Truth be told, he was just so very tired. His sorcery was still unable to do more than barely hold himself together.

He needed some way to repair himself.

He needed a Key…

 **A/N: Anyone else think that Nothing Spike must have been really really complicated if it took the Piper a hundred years to make it? And considering the fact that it took him a century to make millions of Newnith soldiers?**

 **Thanks for the review, aldybaron. I haven't seen that video though.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	8. The Battle of the Boundary Fort

**A/N: Eh, I almost gave up on this fic but with LostPipersChild trying to bring back some life into this fandom I thought I'd continue it.**

Sir Thursday had to admit something to himself- no matter how much extra work it was trying to take care of the Lower House, he actually enjoyed it. It was nice to know that he had an extra Key- and even better to know that he had a larger array of Denizens that he could throw at Saturday when the time inevitably came for him to strike at her.

However matter of who was going to replace Monday's Dusk had yet to be resolved. Which was something that couldn't possibly remain unsolved- there was so much work to be that he couldn't possibly do himself.

Sir Thursday had decided against replacing any of the current Times- they were pretty efficient and seemed to be happy enough to work for him. At least Dawn was working like there was no change, and even seemed to be happier under Sir Thursday. But Noon…. no, Thursday could see the resent in his eyes. Which surprised him. He hadn't know that Noon and Mister Monday had genuinely cared for each other.

Not that Noon was an idiot. He wasn't going to rebel against Thursday- he knew that that was a lost cause. Which was why Thursday let him be- though Noon would need to be monitored closely so Thursday put him on probation.

One day though Noon came to Thursday saying, "Well, excuse me sir, but there is a Denizen here who wants to meet you."

"I'm busy," Thursday snapped. It was the understatement of the century given all that needed to be done both here and in the Border Sea. He counted himself lucky that the Great Maze could really practically run itself so he was covered on that front.

"Well, sir, to be fair this isn't a normal business appointment," Noon said. "You see, a horde of Nithlings had managed to somehow gain access to the lower floors of the Atrium. The Sergeants were going to take care of it, but before they could they saw that a lone Denizen had managed to take out the entire threat of forty Nithlings by himself."

Thursday raised an eyebrow. "It seems like an exaggeration."

"There were too many reports for it to be deemed false," Noon said. "And well, needless to say I was extremely impressed and the Denizen said that he wanted to meet you. Shall I tell him that you have refused or…"

"No, no, I want to meet this incredible Denizen," Thursday said. "Let him in."

A Denizen who wasn't too tall and coated with coal dust walked in and bowed. "Lord Thursday, my name is Pravuil."

"Noon tells me that you achieved quite a feat in slaying so many Nithlings on your lonesome," Thursday said. "I can only assume that this was made possibly by sorcery of some sort?"

Pravuil paled slightly but replied steadily, "Oh no, sir, I am not a sorcerer. I fended off those Nithlings using a silver candlestick I found lying around."

Sir Thursday frowned. "Care to share some more details?"

"Uh, well, it is rather hard to describe," Pravuil said. "But I took advantage of the terrain so that they were forced to approach me one by one and was able to seize the higher ground and therefore win."

Sir Thursday thought that that didn't really help explain anything. "And why is it that you have requested an audience with me?"

"Oh that sire, is because you see, I was once posted in the Army of the Architect," Prvauil said. "And jolly good those were good times- I always wanted to stay on as a permanent resident of the Army but was forced to come down. Now, I know that I was created as a clerk but I find that a job in the Army was one that I took to quite easily. So if milord is impressed by my bravery… I would like a command within the Army of the Architect. As a full-time soldier, sir."

"The army isn't for displays of bravery," Sir Thursday said. "Be as it may, to succeed among my forces you need more than individual skill. No, it is about working as a team. And I have enough soldiers as it is at least for now and I do not plan on mass exporting trainees for some time, at least until this Campaign is over."

Pravuil looked crestfallen but didn't complain. He was too smart for that.

"But-" Sir Thursday added, "the position of Monday's Dusk is open. And I believe that you'd be a perfect candidate for that."

Noon looked shocked. "But sir- he is just a coal collector! He was a clerk two thousand years ago before he was demoted! He doesn't have any administrative ability at all! He does not have the necessary skills or experience to be an assistant manager at a mortal McDonalds, let alone a Time!"

Sir Thursday shrugged. "My decision is final."

"Thank you lord, I graciously accept such a position," Pravuil said, beaming. Already, the coal had begun to clear from his face and he was two inched taller. He also walked with a new stride in his step.

Sir Thursday had chosen Pravuil instead of the other candidates Dawn and Noon had been suggesting for so long for the simple fact that he wanted someone who wasn't closely connected to Monday- so that the new Dusk would inform him if the other two tried anything.

Plus, the Pravuil guy seemed to be pretty trustworthy and loyal.

He smiled to himself. Yup, that was definitely a good decision and one that he would not come to regret.

"By the way, Noon, what is a McDonalds?" Thursday asked.

* * *

" _Two hundred thousand_?" Thursday's Dusk asked again.

"Yes," Thursday's Dawn said. "That's how many our scouts reported are wandering all around the Great Maze."

"They must be mistaken," Noon said. "There… well, Nithlings are infinite but still… two hundred thousand? With those kinds of numbers even with tectonic strategy beginning to separate them they'd be difficult to deal with."

"Okay, this is the last straw," Dusk said. "We need to tell Sir Thursday about this and say that we need his help and the help of both of his Keys to deal with this threat."

"Don't even try that," Noon snapped. "We can't possibly let him know! It was our idea in the first place to let that many Nithlings in. It's turned into an infestation- no matter what happens, we need to take the Boundary Fort back and stop any more from pouring in."

"Easier said than done," Dawn said. "There are eighty thousand of them near the Boundary Fort."

"And we can easily muster a force to get there within three days," Noon said. "It would number around sixty thousand so long as we stripped many of the fortresses to the bone. But that number is good enough against a rabble of Nithlings, and we'll take the Fort back and close the gates yet again."

"That's almost half of our total forces," Dusk said. "Why don't we do this first- we'll go ahead and create a hole into Nothing near the Boundary Fort and then Nithlings will pour out and attack the other Nithlings and like that we'll win!"

"Okay, I don't even want to get into the details of why that's a stupid idea," Dawn said. "But I agree with Noon on one thing- we should avoid telling Sir Thursday any of this. This is our mistake and we need to deal with it, that's why Sir Thursday has given us this responsibility and the freedom to almost do anything we want. And I feel comfortable enough with that large of a force."

"Then it's agreed then," Noon said. "We're going to need to get busy though if we intend to get there within three days."

* * *

It wasn't very hard for them to muster their forces- logistics for a Denizen army were easier to manage than for a human one.

But it was almost inevitable that all of them would have to face the Nithlings one day or another. Because while they could stay locked up within their fortresses, but it wasn't like the Nithlings would starve themselves out like a human army.

Their army arrived at sunset in a collection of five different squares that had troops from practically every single regiment in the Army of the Architect. The decision had been made to strike the enemy at night- Denizens could see fairly well at night and the moon was bigger in the House anyway and so then they'd have the benefit of surprise.

The cavalry, or the Horde to be more specific was being led by Dusk and the infantry was divided into two columns with the large one being commanded under Noon and the smaller one under Dawn.

They tried to be stealthy but that wasn't exactly very possible for long and before they knew it alarm bells were ringing.

Noon saw the Boundary Fort in the distance. There were soldiers guarding the rails- they would have to fight them to ascend to the Switch Room.

But it was far too early for them to go on contemplating that step yet. They had chosen a good time to attack- now was the time when soldiers were usually the least alert as those on the day shift changed for those on the night shift. And though their camp was very organized for a band of Nithlings, it was still a camp and not in any way ready to take on a force of sixty thousand soldiers in formation.

Sixty thousand soldiers. That number still resonated in Noon's head as he began to lead an attack using what was, up till that point, the largest collective force the Army of the Architect had ever attempted to gather in a single battle. The Army usually fought in smaller skirmishes. This current strategy was unorthodox- but something that Noon felt that he had to do in order to make sure that they got the Switch Room closed.

The Nithlings scattered before his forces. It was the first time that Noon had managed to see these strange new creatures with his own eyes- and he could see that the reports had not been wrong. These were no normal Nithlings- now that he was sure of. Their features were far too uniform- and oddly enough their uniforms were all identical, even though they were all yellow and that made Noon snort.

Seriously, if you were going to make a military uniform, yellow was the worst color you could choose in Noon's opinion. For one, yellow was a terrible color and clashed with everything, and secondly, it wasn't as if it offered you any tactical advantages as yellow didn't blend in very well with anything.

The Nithlings scattered before them. Those who were stupid enough to fight were quickly cut down. Noon- not one to be left behind- leaped headfirst into combat. It was there that he confirmed another thing that his soldiers had told him. As his lance struck the Nithlings- instead of them instantly vaporizing like he had expected his lance stuck in them. This actually nearly got him slashed in the face but he drew his short sword to defend himself just in time.

He was more careful after that.

Behind him, his soldiers were all cheering. Up till now the fight had been easy, and Noon was as full of confidence as were his troops. They continued to march ahead, but they never broke formation as they got closer and closer to the mountains that loomed ahead of them- mountains that were so high that they merely fused with the roof of the Great Maze.

But in front of them came a river, and it was beyond that river that the Nithling forces had assembled in formation- something that while it had clearly been hastily throw together by the Nithlings was still well made. The enemy was about twenty-five thousand strong, so Noon gave the order to charge.

Now, it should be noted that the 'river' in question was only four feet wide and two feet deep, and as such didn't pose much of an impediment to Noon's forces. As the two armies collided, there was a deafening screech and Noon found himself nearly completely lost as he struck out again and again at the Nithlings that were all snarling and raging and attempting to cut him down. There was no smoke as thankfully, the enemy seemed to have been unable to muster its artillery in time.

Until after what seemed like several hours the enemy lost heart and they surged forward. Now was it, it was time for them to take back the Boundary Fort. Noon whipped around to take a good stock of the situation, it seemed that he had at least fifty thousand soldiers left.

More than enough, Noon thought. More than enough to scatter these Nithlings, no matter how well-formed.

And so they began climbing the ladders when a tidal wave of spears came to crash down upon them. Noon heard Dawn screaming for the soldiers to form a shield wall, which they did, which thankfully saved them from the brunt of the enemies' spears and firewash. It was at this point that Noon decided to stop leading his army from the front- bravery was all well and good, but at this point it was just going to take raw numbers to take back the fort and he preferred to not be on the front lines when that happened. Both of his fellow Times seemed to agree, and Dusk had set up a perimeter around them as he was on the lookout in case the enemy forces managed to muster themselves and try to attack the army from the rear.

Noon flinches as a cannon ball struck the ground- the enemy seemed to have found their artillery. And Noon had not brought much of his own and with the added height advantage these… New Nithlings, or Newniths, he supposed, had him there. Hand-to-hand fighting had broken out on the ramps as his soldiers struggled against the Newniths who seemed eager to defend the Boundary Fort to the death. Now that was another thing he had not been counting on. He had hoped that the Nithlings would abandon the fort as soon as his army arrived- after all, knowing what normal Nithlings did they wouldn't care much about keeping the Switch Room.

It was then that there was a loud roar that came from the tunnel that the Boundary Fort was supposed to guard, and for a faint few seconds, Noon could swear that he heard was sounded like pipes playing. And then out rushed what appeared to be ten thousand mounted Newnith soldiers with their lances pointed straight at them.

"Sharpshooters! Fire!" Noon shouted. Some of the Newnith soldiers fell, and the bullets seemed to thin out the enemy ranks but it was not enough. "Soldiers! Spear Wall!"

His soldiers planted their feet in the ground and like a Macedonian Phalanx of old, pointed their spears in front of each other and held up their shields.

Noon guessed that the enemy had probably thought that his soldiers would lose their nerve at the sight of a cavalry charge, but they were wrong. His soldiers- Noon thought proudly- didn't lose their ground and the opposing Not-Horses rammed themselves into the wall of spears and swords and cried out in pain. The commander- superior Nithling- whatever Noon guessed one would call it, called off the charge.

It was then that Noon saw the enemy commander for the first time properly. He was tall- far taller than the other Newniths and he was wearing a mask oddly enough. What was he trying to hide? But then Noon saw him raise a set of pipes to what would be his mouth…

"Piper…." Noon said and then realized that he was dealing with something far graver than he had thought so ever before. The enemy cavalry retreated into the tunnels, and so the fighting up the ramps continued. And it went on and on for hours with them gaining ground, but ever so slowly and with enemy forces gathering at them from within the tunnel and launching periodic raids which they repulsed. But his forces were getting weak, and now the sun was beginning to rise.

It was as the sun completely crested the horizon and made its way upwards that there was a roar, louder than ever before, that came from within the tunnel. And at the same moment, Dusk came in and told him that a force of thirty thousand Nithlings had somehow managed to form up outside.

And it was then that the enemy cavalry burst forth from the tunnels again, this time with twice the number of infantry accompanying them as well as artillery.

And from the other side there were the sounds of another army marching towards them.

"Stand and fight!" Noon shouted. "We are soldiers of the Architect! We will fight here and complete our mission!"

By now the Boundary Fort was seventy percent under their control, so Noon began ordering that they would form lines at the exit of the tunnel and one on the other side. The rest would ascend the Boundary Fort and fight the Nithlings from the higher ground. As such, they had managed to size quite a bit of enemy artillery and were working on pointing it at the enemy.

And the two sides met. His army was being crushed from both sides, but Noon saw to it that they held out. And hold out they did, until the sun had crossed its zenith and even Noon felt hazy and tired, his sword arm hanging limp by his side. It had been all too much… all of it…

And then there were screams from within the tunnel, no those were war cries. There were even more soldiers coming from within the depths of the tunnels.

Noon couldn't believe it- just how many soldiers were waiting for him in the Void that lay beyond the House?

It was then that he realized that they couldn't hold up for much longer. That left him with two choices. One was that he could lead all his forces up the Boundary Fort and camp there and hope that he could outlast these enemies. It was viable, but it would mean that all of his soldiers would be cut off for a long time. And sooner or later they would either succumb to the enemy or have to fight them anyway. And he had no idea how many more soldiers the Piper had waiting in the tunnels.

The other option was one that he like even less when compared with staying there and dying: retreat. The sun would set in a few hours, and as long as they could put a few tiles between them and their enemies, that would mean that they could scatter very easily.

"Brother, we need to get out," Dawn said to him as she approached.

But Noon hated to run away. He would actually prefer to die on the battlefield right then and there rather than live to tell of his defeat, but he doubted that many members of the his army would agree with that decision. But the thing was that he had one reason to live to see the sight of day: and that was to tell Sir Thursday about the Piper. And so he swallowed his pride and ordered his forces off the Boundary Fort and told everyone to break through the enemies gathered behind them and get to the nearby tiles as fast as they could.

"What tiles should we get on?" Dusk asked, flipping through his Ephemeris rapidly.

"It doesn't matter now," Noon said. "We just need to get away. Get away as fast as we can."

Before the reinforcements could be upon them, they had already practically broken through the equally worn-out enemy and were marching away in good order, with musketeers at the rear shooting at the enemy and keeping them at bay. Now that they were no longer threatening the Boundary Forth, the Piper seemed less keen to do battle with them and called his forces off once it became clear what they were doing.

But that didn't give Noon any relief. Because that just meant that the Piper was confident that he could kill them at a later time and wasn't in a rush to get them.

 **A/N: And that ends my chapter for now. Do please rate and review if you liked- there are so few of us that it would really count.**

 **And on another note, apparently Arthur and Fred were supposed to be able to take on a few Newniths who were stronger than humans and had been training for several hundred years. If that isn't plot armor I don't know what is.**


	9. The Piper IV

**A/N: Thanks for the review, LostPipersChild. Anyway, hopefully it seems Dragonlord Stephi plans on making a comeback, and when that happens maybe with the three of us we can bring some life back into this fandom.**

All through their walk home back to GHQ, Noon hung his head and just couldn't get over the shame.

He was the Architect's second creation for the Great Maze, the first being Thursday himself, and he had gone up and lost in what was probably the most humiliating defeat in the Army of the Architect's history.

Once they had gotten free of their pursuers, they had all scrambled onto whatever tiles they could find. Most of his forces were here, around thirty thousand in total. Ten thousand had gotten onto other tiles and so were somewhere else in the Great Maze, but supposedly safe.

That still meant that close to twenty thousand Denizens had been lost. And for what? The Boundary Fort was still in the Piper's hands and they could do nothing about it.

"I'm afraid there's really no choice now," Noon said. "We have to inform Thursday, and the Upper House as well. We'll need reinforcements. This is much beyond us."

"Don't take it too much to heart, brother," Dusk said. "In any other case, these would have been Nithlings and we would have succeeded. But it turns out that the Piper was waiting for an opportunity like this, well, either that or it's just a coincidence that these two things happened at once. Regardless, we can't blame you."

"Yes," Dawn said. The three of them were riding at the front of the army. "And you need to get your wounds checked."

"I'm fine," Noon said. Most of his injuries were superficial scratches… aside from the fact that his left foot had been cut off, but that would grow back. It wasn't a problem. "The real question is how will we deal with Sir Thursday?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure he'll understand," Dawn said. But it was clear from the tone of her voice that she didn't believe it. "We'll tell him on the phone or something."

Even Dusk had no crazy ideas on how to deal with the Piper. "But what does he want exactly? I mean… I thought he was dead…"

"I don't know either," Noon said. "But most probably if I'd have to guess he wants revenge against whoever threw him into Nothing in the first place. When I was at a bar in the Border Sea, I overheard a few rats talking about how Saturday had betrayed the Piper or something. Most likely he wants to strike at her domain. But he'll need to take over the Great Maze first… maybe he wants to test this army that he's made."

"But if that happens, they won't let it spread," Dawn said, suddenly worried. "They'll quarantine the Great Maze- Saturday's selfish enough to do it and she'll get her way easy with Sunday doing nothing. They'll shut down all the elevators before they let this invasion spread."

Noon shuddered as he thought of the word. Quarantine. It made it sound as if all of them were diseased. But the disease was the Newnith army here, and Noon knew that just shutting off the elevators wouldn't stop the Piper. He would find some other way, most likely the Improbable Stair. But he couldn't possibly take his entire army on the Stair, so it might delay him. For some time. So maybe such a measure would be warrantied.

"Don't talk like that," Dusk said. "We can still stop him. Remember, we're safe in our Citadels and such and with Tectonic Strategy spreading out his army he won't be able to gather enough numbers to challenge us wherever we've gathered."

"He has an Ephemeris though," Noon said. "I saw one sticking out of his coat pocket. Or at least the corner of one- I'm not sure if it was one but it looked like it. He can wander around the Great Maze as easily as we can."

Their army was around three days away from GHQ right now, and all the time they had to be wary of Nithling bands… even though they so vastly outnumbered any groups of Newniths that were present elsewhere in the Maze so Noon wasn't too worried. "We didn't bring the field telephone, did we?"

"No," Dusk said.

"Then let's send a telegram," Noon said. "Do one of you have a piece?"

"I do," Dawn said. "But it's from really long ago… and I don't know how he'd feel about us sending telegrams… they charge a lot for them and half the time you don't even get your money back… though Sir Thursday may have fixed that bit."

"He'd be even madder if we don't tell him quickly enough," Noon said. "Come on, get me a pen…"

Noon paused for a minute and then wrote out the message:

THE NEW NITHLINGS ARE BEING LED BY THE PIPER STOP WE TRIED TO FACE THEM BUT WERE DEFEATED STOP PLEASE COME TO THE GREAT MAZE QUICKLY WE NEED YOUR HELP STOP

"Money?" Noon asked.

Dawn and Dusk stared at him.

"Come on… I'm not carrying any coin with me around… I'll pay you guys back at HQ," Noon said.

"Uh, Noon, you don't have any money since so spent all of it, remember?" Dusk asked. "No one told you to buy all those Pokemon Cards…."

"Hey, they were an investment, all right?" Noon said. "Now can one of you hand over some money?"

Dawn handed him an Aurues and Noon kept it on the telegram. The Aureus disappeared along with the telegram.

"Aww, darn it, I won't get my change back, now will I?" Dawn muttered after no other coins had appeared.

* * *

Sir Thursday was scratching his chin. He dealt with about two hundred or so Denizens a day. This was a large improvement on Monday's rate of about two per year, and sure, Sir Thursday felt like he could deal with more, maybe around six hundred a day- most of the requests were simple after all and merely needed him to rubber-stamp them, but the thing was that he wanted free time to look at other things.

Like how Grim Tuesday and he were controlling the Border Sea. And more importantly, what his next move against Saturday was going to be.

Thursday was a Denizen, and as so of course thought them far superior to humans, but knew that mortals had two advantages over Denizens- for one, their creativity, and the fact that they did not get complacent very quickly.

And Sir Thursday was getting complacent very fast. Thing was that there was so little to do now. He had taken over Monday's territory and most of Wednesday's too, but there was so little that he could do right now to try and strike against Saturday. A good part of him thought that it would be best to ignore Saturday for a few millennia and instead concentrate on paperwork.

But he knew that Saturday would not stop scheming, and it would take more than military discipline to tackle her. He would have to think outside of the books- and look into unconventional strategies if he wanted to beat her.

But as glorious as his plans were, there really was very little he could do at the moment. He had doubled security around Monday's part of the Will, and was considering an experiment in which he'd set Bibliophages all around it and see if it could kill the thing. Without the first part, the Will would forever be incomplete.

Now, the thing was that the only real steps forward from here were to take a new Key, raise an army, or try to attack Saturday. It seemed nearly impossible to try and wrest another Key from any of the other Days, and he didn't have the manpower to create a very large army. And he was not powerful enough to take on Saturday and win. Not yet at least.

It was as he was contemplating this that the telegram appeared. He didn't pay much attention to it as he assume it was another maudlin message about tax rates or paper shortages or whatnot.

But as he read over it he then sat up in his chair. The Piper? The Piper of all people? He was supposed to be dead!

He immediately summoned his Times and they came bursting into his chambers.

"We have a situation in the Maze," Thursday said as he got up. "I must leave for there immediately."

None of the three Times gathered before him seemed to be too sorry to see him go, but assured him that they had matters well handled.

Thursday snorted. It was exactly how his own Times had reacted when he had said that he would be leaving the Great Maze for some time. He could only hope that there wasn't another of the Architect's children who were eyeing the Lower House.

As he got on the elevator for the Great Maze and shouted at the operator to make sure that he would get there within the next three months he dialed Tuesday and told him to start shipping more Not-Horses and gunpowder to the Great Maze.

"Why? What happened?" Tuesday asked.

"It's the Piper," Thursday said. "He's apparently still kicking- as the mortals would say, and he's raised an army of Near Creations that apparently number close to half a million and also are intelligent and disciplined enough to give my soldiers a run for their money. My Times are unable to handle the situation and I'm on my way there, but if it turns into a full-blown war the likes of which we've never seen before I want as much ammunition and animals as I might need."

"Oh, well, I don't see why you're so worried," Tuesday said.

"He's a son of the Architect and a skilled sorcerer to boot," Thursday said.

"So? I've dealt with sons of the Architect before and wo-" Tuesday said before he abruptly stopped talking.

"What?" Thursday asked. "Which son of the Architect are you talking about? You can't mean Sunday- wait, was it you who cast the Piper into Nothing?"

"No, no, it was a slip of the tongue, forget about it," Tuesday said.

But Thursday didn't buy it.

"Come on now, Tuesday, I have gone and overlooked you swindling from the Border Sea and all your other deeds, but if you know something about the Piper that you're not telling me… well, leave what I'll do to you if I win, know that he's as much a problem for you as he will be for me. His Newniths will spread from there to the Middle House and eventually the Upper House. His Raised Rats will ferry them across the Border Sea. His army may even find its way into your domain- how will you stop it then? And if I am gone, and so is the Lower House, who will buy your products?" Thursday barked.

Tuesday mumbled something inaudible and added, "Alright then, look, you can't tell anyone about this… but I sort of acquired the Mariner."

"Acquired? In what way?" Thursday asked.

"Oh, he was drunk and passed out once in the Secondary Realms," Tuesday said. "And I was watching him from the Front Door and when he let his guard down I went and tried to take his harpoon from him, but I found that it was impossible to take it, the Architect made it so, so I went and acquired him instead and you know… how you can use your Key to bend Denizens to your will… it was hell of a fight though, I'll give you that, and he still nearly managed to take my eye out, but I won and he now guards my part of the Will," Tuesday said sheepishly. "And some other tasks I might deem for him now and then…"

Thursday said, "Oh, and what if I were to tell this to Sunday?"

"Ha! That self-deluded fool wouldn't care," Tuesday said, but Thursday heard the tremor in his voice. True, given that Thursday had no way to contact Lord Sunday and the fact that he seriously doubted that Sunday would've cared, Tuesday had little to worry about. But then again, they were brothers… and all Thursday would need from now on was a sliver of doubt from Tuesday to get him to comply with his plans. This was excellent blackmail information, in other words.

"That's what you're saying," Thursday said with a coy grin. "But let's just say I were to tell him and he did care… if only because he wouldn't want to see a fellow son of the Architect in such a state… do you think he'd do something?"

"What can he do? The Accord protects me and my property!" Tuesday barked.

"Ah, yes, but then again it also did that for Wednesday, and look what happened to her," Thursday said.

"Are you threatening me?"

"Not at all, not at all, I was merely surprised that this was the kind of information you were hiding," Thursday said. "Hmm, and I didn't even know that it was practical to do such a thing, well then, take care and make sure that my Citadel is supplied properly."

Thursday then disconnected the call.

The ride ended up taking over a week. The elevator was well-stocked, but it was the kind Monday used and so wasn't really to his liking. He would've wanted a few swords or axes so he could practice. Not that he would be fighting in the front lines, or if he would be fighting of course, he would be using his Keys, but it was something about seeing a huge wall filled with weapons capable of maiming an elephant with a single stroke that inspired a great deal of calm in him.

And along the way, he couldn't help but think- well, his original plan involved killing the Piper, but what if instead he could enslave him like Tuesday had? After all, he had two Keys and not just one, and the Piper could be so useful to him alive. He could have an almost limitless number of soldiers to throw at Saturday, and he would have his expertise in sorcery to rely on. Not to mention if the Piper could make power and Not-Horses, he would never need to rely on Grim Tuesday for another shipment again.

But thinking about it was one thing, but going ahead and actually trying to get it done would be something else indeed.

 **A/N: Okay, so it's said that each realm of the House has their own coins but we only know about the Lower House's so I made up Aureus for the Great Maze from the Roman currency.**

 **And does seriously no one note the plot hole created by the fact that the Frog couldn't get through Bibiliophages? Why not just dump it in Nothing then to destroy it or set Bibliophages around the place where you locked it up then? And put a trap full of them almost everywhere so the Will can't move about?**


End file.
